Category Archives: Business to Business Marketing Strategies

Tips for improving your business to business marketing strategies and campaigns.  Learn how to find a market niche, and why having a niche is so important.  There are also posts about finding your ideal client (and why you need that too).  Trying to market to everyone only leaves you “spraying and praying” without actually hitting anything.

These pages also cover common business to business marketing mistakes (made by companies both large and small). If you’ve made one of these, you’ll learn how you can fix the errors you’ve made (and avoid future gaffes).

Need more clients? Or better clients? Check out the posts on lead generation, how to set and negotiate higher fees, and what red flags to look for when prospecting for new work.

Finally, there are posts on creating your brand and your company’s “story.” What you are selling isn’t necessarily what you think.  The way you present your products and services can make a big difference in your results.

Earn More Money Marketing to Fewer People

Posted on by

euros imageLess gets me more? How can that be?

Focusing on a small group of people, instead of trying to sell to everyone, can actually get you more business. You need a niche.

But how do you find one?

Find your passion

First of all, think about what you like. Is your passion for design in a particular industry? Are you more drawn to pharmaceuticals? Or does your heart beat faster when you work on something for the music industry? If you’re passionate about something, the joy will come through in your work. You’ll be happier, and so will your customers.

Narrow it down

Next step is to narrow it down. Music is a big topic. Do you want to focus on big labels? Or up-and-coming indie country music artists? Be as specific as possible.

Check the market

Do some research. You may have a great idea, but there’s no sense going ahead with an idea without a market. So, do a little research to find out if a market exists. Here are some tools.

Market search tools

Become known as a specialist in a particular field, and you’ll be the go-to company.  “Oh yeah, she’s the green exhibit designer.”

Next, you’ll need to figure out how to build trust in your chosen niche.  More on that tomorrow.

Photo:poolie

How to Pull Your Marketing Out of the Mud

Posted on by

If you’re like many creative service firms, you’re suffering from a common problem. You’re trying to get more business, but you’re having trouble making progress.

Big firms think you’re too small to be credible. They’re concerned that doing business with you is risky and that you don’t have enough staff to get their work done on time.

Small firms see the high quality of your work and are afraid you’ll cost too much.

Trying to sell to both large and small companies will get you in trouble. Pick one or the other, and narrow down your target audience.

Don’t be the designer for everyone. Be the exhibit designer for the independent film industry. Or, be the designer for the pharmaceutical industry.

Then, then create marketing materials that address the needs (and only the needs) of your niche.

The job of your marketing is to help them feel safe, secure, and confident that you can do the job. Then you’ll be able to get out of the mud.

Photo:photoram

Is Your Marketing Run by Robots?

Posted on by

robot imageIt’s election season in New York.  There’s a primary in less than two weeks.  I got 8 pieces of mail yesterday. Two days before it was 3. I expect to see 4 or 5 more in today’s mail. 

Then there’s the phone calls at all hours of the day and evening. 

Some are from live people, anxiously asking me if Candidate X can count on my vote.

The worst ones are from robots, with a recording of Congressman A telling me how vital it is that I  vote for Candidate X.

I hang up on the robots and toss the fliers (oh, the poor trees that died for this). Even the live people don’t really talk to me. They just recite their scripts. They never say why I should vote for their candidate; only that I should.

They’re doing an awful lot of shouting, but not much listening.

Take the time to listen to what your customers say.  Build a relationship.  Send cards for no reason (Happy Daylight Savings Time!).  Enclose a note with their bill, thanking them for their business.  Ask them what they like (or don’t like) most about working with you. People work with people (not robots).

Photo: aussiegall

Nine Barriers That Stop You From Getting More Business Online

Posted on by

toll booth barrier image

1. Requiring a login or a particular blog account to comment

Slowing people down only frustrates them. Make comments and contacts easy.

2. Advance “Payment”

Requiring (an email address or a sign up) before a visitor can watch your demo, check out your reel, or see your designs

3. Broken links

Nobody can interact with your site or buy your products if they can’t find them. Here’s a free tool to check your Web site.

4. Flash intros

These irritate people more than I can say; you’re forced to watch something with no way out. Auto play and sound is even worse. Just say no.

5. Asking for Twitter followers upfront

Establish trust first.  Let people get to know you (and your great content) before you ask them to follow you.

6. Contact forms with lots of fields

The more information you ask for (name, address, phone, state, city, country, zip, blood type…OK, I’m kidding about that last one), the less likely people are to fill out your form.  Keep it to a minimum.

7. Leaping before you look

Habitat UK jumped into Twitter and began their tweets with popular hashtags (alert symbols meant to help people follow conversations on a particular topic on Twitter) that had nothing to do with furniture.

8. Talking camera, design, or web geek instead of English.

Your customers don’t care about your cool tools. They care about what those cool tools can do (holes, not drills).

9. Too much information

I was recently asked to review a site that had 45 links on the left-hand menu and another 37 on the right. My head was spinning. Keep it simple. If you’ve got lots of links, put them under pop-out sub-menus.

Photo: jetzenpolis

How Do You Focus Your Marketing?

Posted on by

camera lens imageYou’re trying to promote your business.  You want to tell everyone about the great service you offer, your years in business, and your products.

You know this is a mistake, but how do you promote yourself without talking about your service or your quality or your price?

It’s about the lawn, not the grass seed

Why do people buy grass seed? To get a beautiful lawn. You won’t get business by touting years of hybridization to develop your special seed.  You will get business if you offer a solution. Ordinary lawns have to be mowed regularly.  It’s time consuming and hard work.  What if you had a seed that only grew two inches high (then stopped).  Now, a lawn that never needs mowing!  You’d clean up.

Sell holes, not drills

People buy drills because they want to make holes.  The drill is just the means to get the hole. People who buy exhibits don’t really want banners, booths, and brochure stands.  What they really want is to get more visitors at trade shows, more leads, and more customers.  Use your secret identity to figure out what you’re really selling.

Cure your customers’ headaches

What do people hate about exhibits? They’re expensive, it costs a lot to ship them, and it’s hard to dispose of them when they wear out.  Explain why yours are different.  They’re 22% lighter (and cost less to ship), they’re recyclable, or your customers get 36% more leads (include the testimonials to prove it).

Talk about the results (the lawn that never needs mowing) instead of the grass seed (the product).

Not sure where your marketing is focused?  Take the one-minute marketing test and find out.

Photo:  squeaky marmot